Chapter 39
CHAPTER IV.
Ferdinanda had long ago emanc.i.p.ated herself from all control on the part of her aunt. She was accustomed to go and come as she pleased; the only point on which it was necessary to be attentive was punctuality at meals. Her father was very particular about this, only Aunt Rikchen declared, in order that he might worry her out of her five senses if she ever happened to be delayed by her household duties or other matters, as could hardly be avoided by such a poor creature. Ferdinanda was aware also that her father avoided every opportunity of being alone with his sister, and that it was therefore an especial annoyance to him if she herself stayed away from meals on any pretence. Under such circ.u.mstances her father always took his meals by himself in his own room. But this had very rarely happened, even in former days, and scarcely ever happened now. Ferdinanda had almost entirely withdrawn herself from all her friends; she said often that she had no friends, only acquaintances, and that she did not care much about them.
To-day she must pretend to visit some friend, and leave word at home that she should not probably be back to supper, which was always served at nine o'clock punctually. Her pride revolted at the necessity of the lie, and such an improbable one, but she had given her word; whether good or evil came of it, her fate was decided--the deed must be done.
She went therefore at half-past seven, with her bonnet and cloak on, down to her aunt, who was invariably to be found at that hour in the sitting-room behind the dining-room, where, in her seat near the window, she could count her st.i.tches by the fading light, watch the pa.s.sers-by without trouble, and, as Uncle Ernst said, indulge her fancies quite undisturbed. The latter employment was the most successful to-day; the st.i.tches were very difficult to count, in consequence of the gloomy weather, and the same cause had diminished the number of pa.s.sers-by, "as if they were all on strike, like those abominable work-people;" besides the butcher had brought for the next day a miserable leg of veal, which, that silly Trine, the cook, ought never to have taken in, and for her punishment must take back again, although Heaven only knew how she was to get the supper ready all alone, for as for Trine being back in less than an hour, she knew the idle thing better than that. And now Ferdinanda was going out--was going to spend the evening out! Aunt Rikchen in despair s.n.a.t.c.hed her spectacles from her nose, and let her stocking, with the st.i.tches she had only just picked up, fall into her lap.
"Good gracious! has everything combined against poor me to-day?" she exclaimed. "Reinhold has just been in to say that he will not be at home either."
"Where is Reinhold?"
"Oh! did not he tell you? Quite a large _soiree_--that is what you call it? He supposed he must put on his uniform."
"At whose house?"
"At the Werbens'! Young Herr von Werben came here himself this morning.
You saw him in your studio, by-the-bye! I know nothing about it!--of course I know nothing about it. At eight o'clock. It must be half-past seven already."
Ferdinanda's countenance fell. "At the Werben's! At eight o'clock! How could that be!"
"And where are you going, if I may venture to ask?"
Ferdinanda told the lie she had prepared. She had spoken to Fraulein Marfolk the artist at the Exhibition; Fraulein Marfolk had given her such a pressing invitation to go and see her again; she had some curiosities and photographs to show her, which she had brought from Rome; this evening she happened to be disengaged. Professor Seefeld from Karlsruhe would be there also, who was most anxious to make Ferdinanda's acquaintance. She had accepted, and could not draw back now.
"And poor I must eat my supper alone again!" said Aunt Rikchen; "for he had rather eat a live crocodile with its skin and bones, in company with seven Hottentots, than a comfortable mutton-cutlet with his poor old sister. Well, I must bear it. I must bear everything. If the whole business stands still, my poor intellect can stand still too, and my poor old heart with it." Her misery was too great; Aunt Rikchen burst into tears.
"What is the good of exciting yourself so unnecessarily?" asked Ferdinanda impatiently.
"Exciting myself so unnecessarily!" exclaimed Aunt Rikchen. "Of course you think everything unnecessary. But I see it coming. I noticed the people as they went away this morning, how they stood there in the street and stared up at the house, and shook their fists threateningly, and abused the police who were dragging away those two wretches, Schwarz and Brandt, and that silly boy Carl Peters; and they abused your father, too. It was shocking to hear them! It makes me shudder when I think of it, and of what may still happen, for we have not seen the end yet--of that you may be sure. But you don't excite yourself of course--not you!"
"I could not prevent it, and can do nothing against it," said Ferdinanda.
"You might have prevented it, and you could still do something before matters come to the worst, and they burn the roof over our heads!"
exclaimed Aunt Rikchen; "but I cannot see my hand before my eyes; I cannot distinguish a church-tower from a knitting-needle."
"The old song!" said Ferdinanda.
"Every bird sings as he has learned," exclaimed Aunt Rikchen; "and if my ways do not please you, it is only because in these days every chicken is wiser than the hen; for if I am not your mother, I have worried myself as much as two mothers about you, and have asked myself a hundred thousand times what is to come of it? But perhaps Providence may have willed it so; it is always, one way or another, kinder to you than to other people. And I am not at all sure that your father has not always intended it so, for I always had my suspicions of that
"Reinhold?"
"Did you think I meant the Emperor of Fez and Morocco? But you only pretend to be astonished, and jump up off your chair in order to make a poor old thing like me tremble in all her limbs, as if my nerves were not already sufficiently deranges--that is what you call it, is not it?"
"I got up because it is high time for me to go," said Ferdinanda.
"Good-bye, aunt."
She had gone a few steps towards the door, when the portiere which covered it was slowly drawn aside.
"Mi perdona, Signora! Signora Frederica, your most obedient servant!"
Ferdinanda stood still in horror.
"What did Antonio come for at this moment?"
"Mi perdona!" repeated Antonio. "I fear that the ladies did not hear me knock at the door, so I ventured to walk in."
And he pointed carelessly in his easy Italian fas.h.i.+on to some books which he held in his hand.
"This is not the day for our lesson," said Ferdinanda.
"I cannot come to-morrow, signora, so I ventured--"
"I have no time to-day. You see I am just going out."
She said it in a hasty tone, for which there was apparently not the smallest occasion, and which was a wonderful contrast to the Italian's courteous, "Mi ritiro, e le domando perdona--buona sera, signora," and the low bow with which he pa.s.sed again through the portiere.
"Why were you so sharp with the young man?" asked Aunt Rikchen.
Ferdinanda did not answer; she was listening for the soft footstep as it retired, and for the sound of the closing door. Would it be the gla.s.s door leading to the garden, or the other one which led to the entrance hall? It was the gla.s.s door; he had not gone out then. And yet. Why had she said that she was going out? Should she give it up?
But there was no time to think. With a half-murmured: "Good-bye, aunt, I will make haste back," she had left the room and was standing in the street, almost without knowing how she had got there.
She had intended to take a cab at the corner of the street, but the stand was empty; she must make up her mind to walk along the Springbrunnenstra.s.se as far as the Parkstra.s.se, where she hoped to find one. Perhaps it would be better; she could more easily make sure of not being followed than in a close carriage. As she walked hastily along she looked back two or three times; a few people met her; no one was behind her; she breathed more freely; he had not followed her. She feared no one but him.
But he whom she feared to see behind her was at that moment far in front.
Since this morning Antonio had felt certain that the relations between the handsome young officer and Ferdinanda had entered on a new stage, and probably something was going to take place, something that he must know at any price, that he would know, however secretly they might go about it. He had, therefore, made the lesson which he gave her once a week in his own language, an excuse for approaching her, in order to find fresh food for his jealous curiosity, which imagined all possible things. He had found her, who so seldom left the house in the evening, ready to go out, without having ordered the carriage as she usually did. She had sharply rebuffed him, as if she suspected his motive; and what at another time would have irritated him, now delighted him; his suspicions had taken a definite form; a rendezvous was in question! His determination to follow on her track was made even before the portiere had closed behind him.
He had purposely shut the garden door loudly in order that Ferdinanda might believe that he had not left the grounds. But when he got into the garden he had turned to the right and pa.s.sed through an iron gate into the court-yard, and in a few steps was in the entrance hall, through which he pa.s.sed into the street. The cab-stand at the corner was his first aim also; he was obliged to pa.s.s the window at which Aunt Rikchen sat; but if he stooped his head would be hidden by the elder bush in the front garden. It was a disappointment to find the cab-stand empty, but she would experience the same disappointment, but not before she got to the corner of the street. At this corner there was a small public-house which the workmen belonging to the studio were in the habit of frequenting. He sprang down the steps, and stationed himself at the window opposite the cab-stand. It was a mere chance--she might go towards the town, or might already have done so; but no! there she was! She paused a few moments exactly as he had done himself, and came then past the window behind which he was concealed; his eyes were on a level with the pavement; he could see her slender feet as she walked quickly along, with her dress slightly raised. He let her get a little in advance, then emerged again, a.s.sured himself that she was walking down the street, dashed across the street and ran up the Ka.n.a.lstra.s.se towards a private path that ran between villas and gardens parallel with the Springbrunnenstra.s.se and led also to the Parkstra.s.se. This narrow lane was now, as almost always, quite deserted; he could run along it without exciting any attention--not that he would have cared about that; he should reach the Parkstra.s.se some minutes before she did. Arrived there, he flew across the street, and stationed himself between the shrubs in the Thiergarten, in such a manner that he could command the opposite side of the Parkstra.s.se and the opening of the three side streets. The opening of the private path immediately before him was no longer of any consequence to him, but she must come along the Springbrunnenstra.s.se on the left, and at the corner of the last side street to the right there was a cab-stand. She might, it was true, turn to the left, towards the town, but he would still see her, and he was convinced that she would turn to the right. And she did turn to the right. She emerged from the Springbrunnenstra.s.se and walked quickly along the opposite side by the houses, past the cross street to where the cabs stood. There were two cabs, she took the first; the driver of the second politely shut the door after her, and then as the first driver drove off, seized the reins and drew his horse forward. The next moment Antonio was by his side.
"Where to?" asked the driver,
"Where that cab goes."
"To the Grosse Stern, then."
Antonio drew back his foot which was already on the step. The Grosse Stern, at the opposite side of the Thiergarten, where the Charlottenburg Avenue is crossed by several other paths, was not a favourable place for a pursuit in a carriage, which in the great Platz, and indeed on the way there, must excite remark and suspicion. There was a surer way. What signified to him the energetic curse which the disappointed cab-driver sent after him, as Antonio hastened past him along the road into the Thiergarten! The Grosse Stern Avenue, a broad ride, shadowed by old trees, by the side of which were foot-paths, led, as he knew, right across the Thiergarten to the Grosse Stern; Ferdinanda's cab must go round by the Corso Avenue. It was not much out of the way, and her cab went unusually quickly; but he was in the direct path, and could depend upon his muscles and sinews. He ran the several thousand yards that he had to go with wonderful rapidity, heeding as little the beating of his heart as the bloodhound heeds it when on the track of a stag; in fact, the immense exertion seemed to refresh him by overpowering for the moment his pangs of jealousy. He had reached his destination; the Platz lay before him; an omnibus coming from Charlottenburg rattled by without stopping; a few carts were coming from the town; between them, and then in front of them, a cab came rapidly along. It must be he! Antonio had hidden himself amongst the bushes--he would be quite safe here: behind him was the entire park, where he could, at the worst, at any moment retreat into the darkness; and the bushes were so thick that the danger of being detected from the Platz was very slight, while he could see everything that pa.s.sed there. The cab from the town had stopped; a gentleman sprang out. The cab immediately turned round and drove back to the town; the gentleman walked slowly along the Platz without stopping, looking around him on all sides. Antonio was startled at the first glance; the gentleman was not in uniform. Then with a scornful "Bestia!" he struck his forehead; and now that the gentleman pa.s.sed his hiding-place at a short distance, he recognised his detested enemy by his slight figure and easy movements. It was too dark to see his features distinctly. But what matter? He knew quite well who was before him, and his hand grasped more firmly the handle of his stiletto, which he had drawn out, as a huntsman takes aim even when he knows that he is not within shot; and he gnashed his white teeth as at this moment the cab which he had pa.s.sed came round the corner of the Corso Avenue, turned on to the Platz, and there stopped, but only for a moment, only that the man he hated might say a few words through the open door, then jump in and close the door behind him. The cab went on across the Platz, along the road to the Bellevue Schloss, and then disappeared amongst the trees.
Antonio murmured through his teeth the bitterest curse that he knew.
The pursuit was at an end. He could not take a short cut, because he did not know what direction they would take; he could not follow them, that was impossible along the public road. It mattered little, either, where the pursuit ended--for to-day!
But he could not make up his mind to go back or quit the Platz. It was a splendid place for brooding over his revenge, while the darkness sank deeper and deeper, and the leaves around him hissed like serpents'
tongues, and above him in the tops of the mighty trees there were sighings and groanings as of a victim lying mortally wounded on the ground.